


Tsunami

by MellytheHun



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Insomnia, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Nogitsune, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3839779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Tumblr, rewritethestars sent me this prompt: things you said under the stars and in the grass please. Extra points if it's the height of summer and the air is still warm despite it being the middle of the night and it's all so lovely and dreamy and ... I got carried away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tsunami

“Scott can’t understand what I’m…” is Stiles’ half-explanation or justification for why he is knocking on Derek’s loft door at 2:27am in the height of August.   


Derek’s thick brows furrow worriedly, “I’m the only one here.”

The tone of his voice is sorry and says in many more words, ‘I’m not sure who you are looking for who can understand you, but I am the only one available.’ 

Stiles gives him a dry look.

“I know. That’s why I’m here.”  


“Oh,” Derek replies uselessly.  


The moonlight is bright and milky throughout the loft, Derek looks soft as his cotton pants and approachable in a way that makes him almost unrecognizable. It makes Stiles nervous, inexplicably. 

His heart is twisting around and squirming like an impatient child, but it’s happy in a way. It’s excited that Stiles finally listened to it.

Derek doesn’t want to show Stiles in, because while he is used to living with the ghosts of Boyd and every mistake he has made in this space, he doesn’t want Stiles to feel crowded. To Derek, Stiles already smells like anxiety and general unease is coming off him in waves. The loft is too small and too crowded for Stiles to say whatever it is he needs to say.

Stiles is watching Derek’s face closely, waiting for permission or dismissal and so Derek finally says,

“Let me grab a shirt.”  


Derek doesn’t bother putting on shoes, so when they’re outside, in the warm and buzzing air, he can feel grass under his toes. It keeps him calm.

Stiles is watching him, as though he is waiting for Derek to say something or do something that is socially expected. Derek isn’t sure what’s expected of anyone in this kind of situation. 

The last time someone came to Derek in the dark morning, just to say that he was the only one they could go to, was Paige. 

He shakes the image of her from his mind and escorts Stiles through the Preserve. They sit together in the grass and it’s nearly 3am, the moon is still high, the stars are shimmering and bright against the velvet blanket of the night. A warm air rolls over them and it smells rich and sweet.

“It’s not that I can’t sleep,” Stiles starts, voice low and serious, “Cause, I could sleep. Like, I could go to bed right now and fall asleep fine. But I don’t wanna sleep through this.”  


Derek quirks a brow and Stiles gestures vaguely at their surroundings, “I mean, during the daytime, everything is moving so fast and everything seems louder than before. More, like… intrusive than before. Things that made me happy don’t really make me happy anymore. Everything has started to feel so temporary and, like… sharp or something. Like a photo that’s too focused.”

Derek nods in understanding and Stiles looks up at the sky and finishes, “But during the night – the _real_ night, when everyone is already home from work. When everyone else is asleep, it all goes quiet. It all slows down. No one is expecting anything from me. The sound and the focus and the colors and intrusiveness of the whole day just goes away and I can finally _breathe_ again. I can sleep if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.”

“You’ll have to sleep again, eventually. Falling asleep at five and getting up at ten is only going to work for so long,” Derek chides gently.  


Stiles sighs, falling onto his back and spreading his arms out.

“I know,” Stiles says, “I know. When will life go back to normal, Derek? _Does_ life go back to normal after all this?”  


“No,” Derek answers readily, “It’s never going to go back to what it was.”  


Stiles grimaces half-heartedly, like he knew that answer was coming, but it still doesn’t taste nice. Derek leans back on his hands, the soil moist and alive under his palms.

“Laura once told me something really important,” he begins, snatching Stiles’ attention from the stars, “I was fourteen. I went to complain to her about how boring this town was and I asked her, ‘when will my life start?’ She was doing homework at the time, she looked down at her paper and she let out a breath and told me, ‘one day, around the time you’re sixteen or seventeen, life starts happening to you. And then it doesn’t stop.’”  


“Life starts happening _to_ you?” Stiles asks.  


Derek nods, turning his head to look at Stiles, “I was confused at first too. I thought life was going to be some choose-your-destiny book, but it’s not. It doesn’t come in neatly spaced out intervals of multiple choice questions. It comes in waves and sometimes tsunamis.”

Stiles sits up, some grass sticking to his back, his hair sleepily mussed, his eyes twinkling like the stars.

“And she was right,” Derek adds, “I was sixteen when life started happening to me and it hasn’t stopped. Not for a second.”  


Stiles’ brows pinch and he looks like he’s tempted to say that he’s sorry, but he doesn’t and Derek is deeply grateful for that. Stiles turns away, drawing his knees in and clasping his hands around his calves. His toes flex under his untied converse.

“Is it random, though? I mean, like… why me? Why did I…”  


Unsure of what he really wants to ask, unsure of what he wants to hear, Stiles trails off. He stares at the tops of his knees and Derek watches the night light move across Stiles’ shape. The curve of his back is smooth and the strength in his once lanky arms is flattering. His dotted skin is a perfect complement to the night sky. 

“I’m glad it was you.”  


Stiles turns to him, looking deeply betrayed, mouth parted and shoulders slack. Derek shakes his head and continues,

“It _had_ to be you. You’re the only one strong enough to continue.”  


Stiles looks taken aback at first, wondering if he’s misheard Derek.

“You’re the only one strong enough to overcome.”  


“Derek,” Stiles mutters reverently, feeling something like the pride of survival overtake some of the guilt of it.  


“It’s true,” Derek insists, placing a meaningful hand on Stiles’ shoulder, “I mean that. None of the others would have made it. You are the one strong enough to heal. You the one strong enough to live on after that. You might not feel okay right now, but you will. You will be okay again and that’s why it had to be you.”  


Stiles’ eyes turn glassy, his hand comes up to touch Derek’s.

“I’m just a human.”  


“You’re the strongest person I know,” Derek confesses.  


Stiles looks away, takes his hand back and his edges turning hard.

“Shut up, you don’t mean that.”  


“I do,” Derek says, finding Stiles’ hand and gripping it tightly, “I mean that.”  


Stiles’ hand tremors a little in his and he hears Stiles swallow thickly. He still doesn’t look at Derek when he mumbles,

“I’d have said the same thing about you.”  


Derek’s face goes slack with surprise, then gentle and warm. He watches Stiles’ body language, gazes closely at the white line work of Stiles’ turned face. His lashes are long, his pointed nose is blanketed with the starlight. 

“Thank you,” Derek eventually replies.  


Stiles nods and turns more toward him, still reluctant to make eye-contact. When he does meet Derek’s eyes, he groans as if he’s frustrated and he falls backward again in a heap. Derek looks down at him, half-concerned, half-charmed. He’s really just glad Stiles is alive to bother him at 3am, but he doesn’t want to say that, because it means more than he is able to vocalize. It means more than words can really say.

“What is it?” Derek asks.  


Stiles has thrown his arm over his eyes, his face and neck are red and he smells a lot like embarrassment. Derek isn’t quite sure what he’s done wrong.

“Ugh, nothing. Just. Nothing.”  


“It doesn’t smell like nothing.”  


“That’s cheating,” Stiles chastises, “You are a cheating cheater.”  


“You sort of smell embarrassed.”  


“Lies!” Stiles exclaims, turning his face more away to reveal how red the back of his neck is, “Lies and slander!”  


Derek smirks and lies down on his side. He props his head up on his hand and waits for Stiles to face him.

It takes a few moments.

“What?” Stiles asks, as if Derek is the one giving off incriminating smells.  


Derek reaches out gingerly and runs his hand over Stiles’ overgrown hair. He feels a heavy presence in their space, like Laura or his mother or Stiles’ mother or maybe even Derek’s father is there, whispering in Derek’s ear, _‘tell him what he needs to hear.’_ He doesn’t want to get it wrong. He doesn’t know what Stiles needs from him and why he was the only one who could give it to him at 3am, but now the responsibility of words sits heavy in his mouth.

He thinks to himself, _be the person you needed when you were Stiles’ age. What is it that you needed to hear?_

“You’re going to be okay, Stiles.“  


Stiles tilts his head more into Derek’s caressing hand, his heart jumping when Derek says lowly,

“You are loved.”  


He blinks up into Derek’s eyes, the moon like a drop of silver in the pool of amber that is Stiles’ unwavering stare. 

“Am I loved by you?” Stiles asks, uncharacteristically quiet and nervous.  


Derek’s unchanging expression is unnerving for Stiles, making it hard to expect anything. Derek eventually nods and says between a thousand unspoken words,

“Deeply.”  


Stiles’ heart pounds against his chest, so unsure, so hoping he doesn’t overstep any boundaries. He leans up, bringing his face up to Derek’s, looking closely into Derek’s polychromatic eyes, thinking it all feels so unreal. 

“Deeply?” Stiles asks, voice gravelly in a way that gives away all of his inner thoughts.  


“More than you can know.”  


At that, Stiles shuts his eyes and closes the space between them, pressing his lips against Derek’s. It’s a gentle kiss. There’s pressure there, the light bite of Derek’s facial hair that makes the kiss so _real_. 

Stiles feels like a fire is lit from inside him, his face is so hot and his heart is somewhere in his throat and he’s praying Derek feels it too. 

He can’t say what he wants to; that he feels okay right now. _Really_ okay. Like Derek has muscled his way through the veils of darkness and illness and memories to come so close to him. Like Derek and the things haunting him are both too big to share the same space, and there’s noise, so much noise in his head, until Derek taps his shoulder and then all that’s in his mind is

**Derek.**

Derek. 

_Derek is here, relax. Derek is here, you’re safe. Derek is here, you won’t be hurt again. Derek is here and he loves you. He loves you and you can **feel** it._

He wants to say that Derek’s gaze and Derek’s lips and Derek’s hands and Derek’s voice can stop time. They can silence all the noise. Derek can push out all the intrusive world, brush off the debris of Stiles’ collapsing reality by petting over the hair on his head. 

Derek’s lips move against his and the rest of the world crumbles and falls away. 

Their kiss doesn’t really break at first. It’s short, really, the first one. But Derek doesn’t pull away, he just kisses Stiles again. And again. And again. And then he brings his hand up to cup Stiles’ face, rubs his thumb over Stiles’ burning cheek. He kisses Stiles calmly, quietly, like they have all the time in the world, like this will never end.

And Stiles is fine with that.

“You are a part of life that happened to me,” Derek whispers against Stiles’ lips and Stiles understands what he means.  


“I was a wave,” Stiles says more than asks, his smile resting against Derek’s pink, kissed mouth.  


“A tsunami,” Derek answers.  


“Thank you,” Stiles says without knowing why.  


Derek nods, his lips catching on Stiles’, “Thank _you_.”

Stiles shuts his eyes and lets Derek kiss him again and a thousand times more, because the moon is high and the stars are bright and he is suspended with Derek. Blissfully suspended.

  



End file.
